Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Bye bye baby seat , hello booster seat!

There are plenty of articles out there telling you just how expensive raising a child is, and to be fair if you buy everything new it can soon add up. We were lucky to have lots of very generous friends who gave us bags full of clothes and toys. Roo's cot was from a charity shop as was his pushchair. One of the only things we couldn't purchase second hand was a car seat. Money has always been tight so it's good to know there are companies like K and Co online that offer interest free credit to help cash strapped families get the essentials they need WHEN they need them!

Just over four years ago we faced the prospect of buying a new car seat for Roo. At six months he was rapidly out growing his first baby seat - the cute little carrier we brought him home from hospital in - he wanted to sit up, to look around, to see where he was going rather than look at the back of the seat.

Roo at six days old. So, so teeny!!

There are so many car seat designs so we had already done a bit of research and had an idea of what we wanted - based mainly on what we could afford! - and off we went to be 'fitted'. I will never forget the look on the sales woman's face when we took her outside to assess which seat we would need for our vehicle. We are not a two car family. Technically we are not even a one car family. All we had was a large white van which the Other Half used for his business. Which means it is mainly used for fetching and delivering motorbikes. Certainly not your average family runaround...

The sales woman brought out a succession of seats (including the one I had my eye on, which I knew was on offer) dismissing them one by one as 'not as safe it could be due to the positioning of the seatbelt'. Now I understand the importance of safety but I am a child of the 70's -
I can remember me and my four siblings rolling about in the back of an
Austin Maxi without a seat belt between us let alone padded head guards and reclining seats! In the end she settled for one that cost nearly as much as the old banger we had before we bought the van and to our eyes looked no more or less stable than all the others she had tried before, but not after she suggested that it might be worth considering buying a car! We smiled, thanked her for her time, went home and ordered the original seat we had planned on purchasing online.

Roo, being the lanky streak that he is grew out of that seat last year and we have been using a second hand booster seat (booster seat NOT baby seat - he gets most indignant!), but the foam padding is wearing thin and is really quite uncomfortable for anything longer than the 5 mins ride home from Nonny's house. So we need a new one. And as we are off on holiday in less than four weeks, we really need to get one now!

*This Featured post was written in partnership with Kay & Co but all words and opinions and photo's of cute baby in carrier are my own ;-)

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